A wounded Superman lifts University High's girls basketball team

Dr. Christopher Cosby, who is recovering from a stroke, is interviewed by IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel during a IHSAA sectional game between University High School and the Indianapolis Metropolitan High School.
Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

University High superfan Dr. Chris Cosby snips a bit of net after the team won its sectional championship.(Photo11: Copyright - Jamie Owens, J. Scott Photography)

CARMEL – He is on top of the ladder, on top of the world, bellowing triumphantly and holding a piece of net from University High’s sectional championship. Below him are players and parents and coaches, the very people who have seen this miracle unfold. They’re the ones supporting Dr. Chris Cosby as he climbs another step and reaches skyward. There’s your metaphor.

And here’s his wife, Cindi Gonzales-Cosby below the basket. Her hands are all over the ladder, all over this miracle on 116th Street.

Everybody in this story has won, and they’re not finished winning. The University Trailblazers beat Bethesda Christian this weekend to advance to a Class 1A girls regional showdown Saturday at Jac-Cen-Del. And Dr. Chris Cosby, good ol’ Coach Doc, he’ll be there.

It wasn’t long ago that everything in this story, all this winning, would have seemed preposterous. From 2010-15, the Trailblazers went 28-76. In April of 2016, after new coach Justin Blanding’s debut season – the Trailblazers, including Chris and Cindi's daughters, Cyan and Honor, went 16-9 – Dr. Chris Cosby suffered a massive stroke that left him unable to walk, unable to talk, unable to understand what was happening.

What happened next, what continues to happen to this day, defies medical understanding. It's a story about the mystery of traumatic brain injury and the magic of school and community. It's a story of love and high school basketball.

It's the story of one man climbing that ladder, and all the people cheering him to the top.

* * *

Today, Doc feels like Superman.

He can't say why, for a lot of reasons. The stroke left him with aphasia, meaning the right word doesn’t always come out, a noun like boat replacing a word like dinner. When the word he wants is floating just beyond that beautiful brain of his, a brain that put him through medical school and law school, Doc will purse his lips and look at his wife for help.

Before this sectional quarterfinal against Indianapolis Metropolitan, Superman is sitting in the front row of University’s gym, the U-Center. His 'S' is subtle, gray on gray, but Doc figures he might wear one of his gaudier Superman shirts, the bright red ‘S’ against a backdrop of gold, for the sectional final if the Trailblazers get there.

Today he feels like Superman, but there are days he feels like Batman or The Flash. He wore a different superhero shirt every day to rehab, and he wears them to University games. He’s also a huge supporter of coach Brandon Lafferman’s boys basketball team; his son Jazen played for Lafferman in 2014 and ’15. This whole superhero thing started after he suffered a monstrous, left hemispheric ischemic stroke, and the most inexplicable thoughts came flooding into his brain.

“I was awake the whole time,” Cosby, 51, says of April 7, 2016, the day he suffered that stroke. “On the way to the emergency room I thought of Cindi. I didn’t know anything, I couldn’t do anything. Cindi was all I knew.”

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Cindi Gonzalez-Cosby fist-bumps her husband, Dr. ChrisCosby, during a University High game.(Photo11: Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar)

She is sitting with us in the front row of the U-Center, and tears are filling Cindi Cosby’s eyes, but she's about to giggle. Because Doc is about to tell me the second thought that came into his head:

Reggie Miller in the Superman shirt.

Remember that? Miller, the Indiana Pacers star from 1988-2005, wore a Superman shirt before Game 3 of the 2000 playoffs against Milwaukee. The Pacers had squandered their home-court edge by losing Game 2 of that first-round series, so Miller was making a statement of intention. Sure enough, he scored 34 points that night to lead the Pacers to victory. They advanced in five games and went all the way to the 2000 NBA Finals.

Why did Chris Cosby, shortly after suffering a stroke, think of his wife and then Reggie Miller's T-shirt 16 years earlier? He can’t say. It’s a mystery, same for his choice of superhero shirt for University games.

“I wear what I feel like I am,” Doc says.

A few minutes later I find the fourth of Chris and Cindi Cosby’s four children, the only one still in high school. Drej Cosby, whose brother and two sisters attend Purdue, is a sophomore at University High. He has seen his dad, trapped for months inside that brain of his, gradually work himself free to the point where he’s talking, walking, attending practices and working as something of an unofficial coach for Blanding. I ask Drej what he makes of his dad’s tendency to wear superhero shirts.

“Because," Drej says, "he’s basically like a superhero.”

* * *

Before he could talk, he could draw.

He wasn’t an artist before any of this, but when Cindi heard about art therapy for patients of traumatic brain injury (TBI), she put a pencil in her husband’s left hand and set him free.

Doc is a natural right-hander, but the stroke devastated that side of his body. He shuffles when he walks, wearing a splint to support his lower right leg, and a wool glove covers his cold, curled right fingers. Starting with pencil scribbles on a 4-by-6 index card, Doc advanced to magic markers and then water color, the images rudimentary but brilliant. An early victory was the day his blood sugar dropped — doctors found diabetes after the stroke — and Doc showed Cindi his glucose monitor and the box of orange juice he had just drawn.

“And I understood,” she says.

The first figure he could draw was a number 8, sideways, representing infinity, and it remains a favorite. The stroke left Doc mostly blind in his left eye, a brutal condition he describes by drawing a sideways 8 and filling the right circle with a lovely landscape: a stream flowing past a tree, to a mountain and whatever lies beyond. The left circle he colors mostly yellow with red blotches. In one small section he leaves room for a glimmer of landscape. That, Doc is saying in magic marker, is the world through his left eye.

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Dr. Christopher Cosby, who is recovering from a stroke, cheers on the University High School girl's basketball team during a sectional game against Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Now Cosby attends all the school's basketball games to cheer the teams on. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby, who is recovering from a stroke, cheers on the University High School girl's basketball team during a sectional game against Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Now Cosby attends all the school's basketball games to cheer the teams on. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

University High School of Indiana's Lily Fair (14) is guarded by Metropolitan High School's Zoey Lewis (3) during a sectional game at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Dr. Cosby now attends all the school's basketball games to cheer the teams on. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

If you look closely, you can see how Dr. Chris Cosby
feels about how a stroke affected him. Hidden inside the temporal cortex in a drawing he made of his brain is the word "sucks." Gregg Doyel/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby, who is recovering from a stroke, holds his dead hand while attending a University High School girl's basketball team sectional game against Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Dr. Cosby now attends all the school's basketball games to cheer the teams on. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Cindi Cosby, the wife of Dr. Christopher Cosby, who is recovering from a stroke, shows a water color painted by Dr. Cosby using his other hand after the stroke left his dominant hand dead on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Dr. Cosby now suffers from aphasia making it difficult to communicate, but art therapy is helping him to communicate his feelings and learn more control with his other hand. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby, far left, who suffered a stroke sits in on the pregame locker room meeting with the University High School Girls basketball team before a sectional game against the Indianapolis Metropolitan High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Cosby now attends all the school basketball teams to cheer the teams on. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Indianapolis Star Columnist Gregg Doyel holds a rock with a spiral hand carved design given to him by Dr. Christopher Cosby, who is recovering from a stroke, and now cheers on the University High School Basketball Teams at every game on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Cosby's son attends U.H.S. as did his older children. Cosby has adopted the spiral to symbolize his journey to recover from the stroke. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Unofficial University High School of Indiana unofficial mascot Hank The Trailblazer keeps an eye on students before a sectional game against Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Hank is owned by University High School Assistant Girls Basketball Coach Lade Akande. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Cindi Gonzales-Cosby, left, and her husband Dr. Christopher Cosby, right, fist bump while attending a sectional game between the University High School girl's basketball team and Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Dr. Cosby now attends all the school's basketball games to cheer the teams on. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby, right, who is recovering from a stroke, gets a fist bump from University High School student Josh Watson, left, during a sectional game against the Indianapolis Metropolitan Pumas at University High School on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Cosby shows his school spirit by attending every school basketball game to cheer the team on. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby, who is recovering from a stroke, cheers on the University High School girl's basketball team during a sectional game against Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Now Cosby attends all the school's basketball games to cheer the teams on. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby, right, who is recovering from a stroke, receives a fist bump from Dr. Will Berry, left, while sitting next to his wife Cindi Gonzales-Cosby during a sectional game against Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Dr. Cosby now attends all the school's basketball games to cheer the teams on. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby, left, and his wife Cindi, right, point to a drawing created by Dr, Cosby showing what he sees out of his dead eye after suffering a stroke on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. After the stroke Cosby lost sight in one eye and use of his dominant hand. He now attends every basketball game at University High School to cheer on the teams. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby who is recovering from a stroke is interviewed by Indy Star Columnist Gregg Doyel during a sectional game between University High School and the Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Dr. Cosby now cheers on the school's basketball teams at every game. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

The University High School score board reads 90 to 23 in the fourth period during a sectional game against the Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby, who is recovering from a stroke, cheers on the University High School girl's basketball team during a sectional game against Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Now Cosby attends all the school's basketball games to cheer the teams on. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby, right, who is recovering from a stroke, cheers on the University High School girl's basketball team during a sectional game between against the Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Now Cosby attends all the school's basketball games to cheer the teams on. Bottom left, Indy Star Columnist Gregg Doyel, center, Mrs. Cindi Cosby. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby, right, who is recovering from a stroke, receives a fist bump from University High School of Indiana student Abby Martin, left, and unofficial school mascot Hank The Trailblazer, after a sectional game against Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Dr. Cosby now attends all the school's basketball games to cheer the teams on. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby, who is recovering from a stroke, cheers on the University High School girl's basketball team during a sectional game against Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Now Cosby attends all the school's basketball games to cheer the teams on. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby, center, who is recovering from a stroke, sits between his wife Cindi Cosby, left, and family friend April Morrow during a University High School girls basketball sectional game against Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Cosby now shows his school spirit by cheering at all the school's basketball games. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby, left, who is recovering from a stroke, gets a fist bump from University High School student Ethan Solomon, right, during a sectional game against the Indianapolis Metropolitan Pumas at University High School on on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Cosby shows his school spirit by attending every school basketball game to cheer the team on. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby, right, who is recovering from a stroke, cheers on the University High School girl's basketball team during a sectional game between against the Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Now Cosby attends all the school's basketball games to cheer the teams on. Bottom left, Indy Star Columnist Gregg Doyel, center, Mrs. Cindi Cosby. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby, who is recovering from a stroke, receives a fist bump from University High School basketball player Haley Tomlinson after a sectional game against Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Dr. Cosby now attends all the school's basketball games to cheer the teams on. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Dr. Christopher Cosby hugs his wife, Cindi Gonzales-Cosby, after a girl's basketball team sectional game between University High School and Indianapolis Metropolitan High School at University High School in Carmel, Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Dr. Cosby is recovering from a stroke but comes to cheer on the school's basketball teams every game. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

University High School Assistant Girls Basketball Coach Lade Akande holds her dog, Hank The Trailblazer after a sectional game at University High School in Carmel Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

“My Chris is in there,” Cindi says. “I can see it, but he’s so frustrated. He knew so much. When he had his (family) practice, nurses called him Dr. Google.”

I’m looking at Doc, and he’s pursing his lips and trying to get this out. The sentences come from his mouth in pauses, and if he is not using the exact words he would have chosen before the stroke, he is using the words his brain can muster today.

“I went to medical school, I went to law school, I knew everything,” he says. “April 7, 2016, I lost it. Everything was derailed.”

Once upon a time they had a doctor’s salary and a beautiful home in Noblesville. Now they live on his disability in a rental near University High, getting free tuition from the school. Cindi wants to work but can’t leave Doc for long, so the bills are mounting. Cindi cuts corners where she can, canceling cable and going to the McDonald’s parking lot when she needs the internet. Medically speaking the worst is behind them, unless it isn’t. Traumatic brain injury is a caged monster that can break loose at any time, and Doc often has seizures at home. After 22 months, Cindy knows tomorrow could bring anything.

As for Doc, he often draws his brain. In one picture he divides the brain in half, the right side a brimming kaleidoscope of hope and colors, the left side dull and mostly barren. In another he labels the brain's various parts – frontal cortex, occipital, parietal – and fills them with squiggly lines. In the temporal cortex, where he suffered the stroke, he has hidden a single word inside the squiggles, a word camouflaged so carefully that I can't find it until Cindi tells me exactly where to look.

And there it is, hidden in the temporal cortex of Doc's brain, everything he has to say about his current condition:

S-U-C-K-S.

* * *

Doc is in the locker room, his eyes closed and his head moving rhythmically as coach Blanding gives the team final instructions. Blanding pauses and Doc fills the gap:

“Let’s gooooooooo,” he rumbles softly, swaying to music in his head.

Blanding smiles, the players smile, and now Blanding is reminding them of something Doc drew just for them.

“I showed you Doc’s picture about what all of this really means,” Blanding says. “It’s not about you. It’s about all of us.”

The picture is a statement of purpose, the words written in black ink except for the ones – italicized below – in blue:

“You are a miracle, and will never know how much you contribute to the lives of others. Because you do contribute, even now “

Blanding raises a fist and the Trailblazers surround him. They are chanting: “1-2-3 … Blazers!” Cosby is chanting something else, chanting quietly until the last word:

"Let’s go," he says. "Let’s go let’s go let’s go let’s goooooooooo!”

A few minutes later the Trailblazers are warm. They return to the bench for introductions, Doc’s cue to rise. Already he has been active in pregame, rising to shout the time to tipoff in five-minute increments.

“Twenty minutes!” he whoops, an auctioneer in a Superman T-shirt. “Twennnnnnnnty minutes!”

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Dr. Chris Cosby is interviewed by IndyStar Columnist Gregg Doyel on Jan. 30 during a sectional game between University High School and the Indianapolis Metropolitan High School.(Photo11: Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar)

For pregame introductions, each Trailblazer is introduced and makes a beeline for Doc, who holds up his left fist for her to pound. The game starts and he is on his feet, pacing when he’s not hunched over like a football coach, cheering and studying the action. I'm taking notes and we're snapping pictures, and University fans and parents figure out what is happening on the first row. They come down to tell me Doc stories. One parent approaches, then another. Now a teacher, and then P.A. announcer Chris Keys. And finally Nancy Webster, University’s director of admission:

“My favorite Doc Cosby story,” Webster says, “is what he used to say (before the stroke). Players on our team would run past, and he’d say in a low voice, so the other team couldn’t hear, because he didn’t want to be hurtful: ‘She can’t guard you.’”

Today, University is running away with this sectional quarterfinal – final: 90-23 – and Trailblazers reserve Jhordan McGuire, a 5-10 junior, shines in the extra playing time. Doc is watching her score and pass and rebound, and his eyes are wide as he talks about McGuire, a running monologue I hear in bits and pieces as he paces the sideline:

“… going to be so good …”

“… has it all …”

“… can play!”

Cindi is smiling. This is her husband at his happiest. His involvement with the University basketball teams, sparked by the participation of Cyan, Honor and Jazen, escalated after the stroke even with that trio moving onto Purdue and Drej running track as a hurdler. Doc is an honorary coach for both teams, leading some drills in practice and getting those fist bumps before games.

"Besides my own family," Doc says, "this is all I have right now so I can 'get out of the downing.' It's not about winning championships. I'm just happy when I can coach the kids! I love all of it and them! It's good for me."

At home he is frustrated, a brilliant man tormented by incomplete memories of what he once was, but in the gym he is vibrant and he is getting better. The progress is invisible in real time but obvious over long stretches even now, 22 months after his traumatic brain injury. Nobody can explain what is happening here, only that it is happening: A stroke survivor is inspiring a basketball team, and the team is inspiring the stroke survivor.

On the court, McGuire is about to shoot a free throw and Doc is standing and yelling: “Come on, give me one!” On the front row, Cindi is beaming: “Look at his eyes,” she says. “Look how alive they are. It only happens here.”

Dr. Chris Cosby sits down next to me. I don’t ask him a thing. This charming, brilliant man just starts talking.

“This team, it’s …” he stops because he can’t find the word. Doc purses his lips and looks to the ceiling. Nope, he can’t find it there. He looks to Cindi, who wants so badly to solve the riddle but cannot. Doc shakes his head, then breaks into a smile. He’s got it.

In a few days this team wins its first sectional since 2012. Blanding is given the IHSAA trophy, but it’s not his to hold. The trophy belongs to someone else, so the University coach hands it to the man in that gaudy shirt, the bright red ‘S’ against a backdrop of gold. On this basketball court, surrounded by this basketball team, Dr. Chris Cosby is not a shuffling stroke victim. He is Superman, and with the trophy in one hand and his left arm spread wide, he is ready to fly.

How you can help Dr. Cosby

Dr. Chris Cosby’s massive stroke on April 7, 2016 rendered him permanently disabled from aphasia, blindness and paralysis, and made a full-time caregiver of his wife, Cindi Gonzales-Cosby. They live on disability, with three kids hoping to stay in college and a fourth hoping to head that way soon, and on May 31 will be looking for housing near Carmel where their son Drej Cosby attends high school. Assistance can be donated here on GoFundMe.